11 July 2013

YA books: ARE THEY TOO DARK? (Yes, again.)

A blogpost by children's author Shoo Rayner has challenged the concept of YA fiction, arguing that "children want to read [young adult books] as a peek under the covers of a teenage world. They find them in the children's section of the bookshop or library after all. But that's not what they get. Young adult books are really the books that adults crave so much but can't find."

Rayner described a "slow moral decline", consisting of violent video games and books and serial killer TV series. He implied that such content being so readily available for children can result in children "join[ing] gangs and shoot[ing] each other on the streets".